Best Week Ever
Professional mountain biker Ryan Petry takes on the challenge of biking through 7 different iconic Colorado mountain towns in 7 days - but there’s a catch. In each town he meets up with a local rider to learn about the town and ride some of the local’s favorite trails in the area. 7 towns, 7 days, 7 fun filled episodes.
Watch the Best Week Ever episodes below!!
Episode 1 - Crested Butte
Ryan begins his seven-part series in Crested Butte (CB), Colorado. Dave Wiens, a six-time Leadville 100 champion, joins him there. After saying goodbye to Dave, it is time to shift gears and prepare for the backcountry adventure: the Grand Traverse...
Episode 3 - Leadville
Ryan is joined by Ty Hall, who is the owner of the Tennessee Pass Nordic Center & Cookhouse in Leadville. As a Canyon ambassador, he loves hitting the trails and is a 20x finisher of the Leadville Trail 100. Before dropping into some lesser-known single track the crew explored from of the old mines. Having a locals with him, Ryan was introduced to all the secret spots: Going from rugged 4x4 roads to pristine single-track weaving through aspens, this ride had it all. Heading to Vail was a bit more relaxed than the transfers the days before, giving Ryan enough time to take in all the scenery.
Episode 5 - Breckenridge
On day five of the "Best Week Ever" Ryan wakes up in Breckenridge and makes his way to Winter Park. But first off, he's off for some scones with Todd, who is on the town council in Breckenridge and is a real estate agent. For the ride in Breckenridge Todd and Ryan were joined by a bunch of riders Todd mentors - it was quite an adventurous “Board Meeting”. But Ryan's day was not over yet - the longest transfer of the "Best Week Ever" was still waiting for him. Despite having four days of riding in his legs he quite enjoyed the transfer to Winter Park.
Episode 7 - Boulder
The last day of the "Best Week Ever" is here already: this time Ryan woke up in his own bed in Boulder and met up with Brooke. Brooke’s goal is to get more people into the cycling community and making cycling more accessible, while being on great expeditions on a bike.
And with that the “Best Week Ever” comes to an end already: “It was a celebration of all things I love about this sport, and in documenting it, I really hope to get you dreaming about what your own “Best Week Ever” might look like. Or at the very least, serve as a reminder of why you fell in love with this sport in the first place.” - Ryan Petry
Episode 2 - Aspen
The second day of the "Best Week Ever" takes Ryan from Aspen to Leadville. In Aspen, Ryan is joined by Chris Davenport, professional skiier and mountain guide. But Chris is not new to cycling since he has a background in cycling before his skiing career.
After covering the trails of Aspen and getting a history lesson from Chris, it is time for Ryan with Chris and getting mentally prepared for the long ride to Leadville. Ryan swaps the trails of Aspen for the Independence Pass, jumping on his Endurace. Stay tuned for next week's episode, where Ryan rides from Leadville to Vail.
Episode 4 - Vail
As a popular winter destination, not many people think of Vail as a popular summer recreation zone but it’s brimming with amazing trails and outdoor activities. Ernest Saeger, Director of the Vail Valley Trails Alliance, spoke with Ryan about life in the Vail Valley and his enthusiasm for bringing trails to life. When they rode Two Elks West, a famous route that mountain bikers from all across the state travel to, the Lux Trail was in its element. Ryan's transfer to Breckenridge had him on both his road and mountain bike. First cruising over Vail Pass and finishing with his Lux Trail on Wheeler Pass. With a picturesque backdrop the day came to an end, and it was time to get ready for day five of the Best Week Ever.
Episode 6 - Winter Park
Day six of the "Best Week Ever" meant it was time to ride home for Ryan already: Winter Park to Boulder - sunshine, thunder and rain included. But before heading to Boulder, Ryan met Skyler and Sara. They both enjoy getting out, and the rapid progress possible when you mix someone willing to challenge themselves with another to help teach and encourage. Out on the trail, they pushed one another and zoomed over rocks and through twisty single track. The way to Boulder was filled with rain and thunder, but Ryan was highly motivated to make his way home quickly. Because he was finally able to see his wife Maddie and baby Ro again.
After Ryan came over a lighting stricken and muddy mountain pass I was there to greet him with a smile
This series was released weekly over the course of 7 weeks on Canyon’s YouTube Channel as a marketing effort to get more people excited about riding bikes!
The Best Week Ever - Behind the Scenes
Ryan Petry, professional mountain biker, approached me last winter with a bit of a wild idea.
And I love wild ideas!
Recording the intro scene in Crested Butte
Last season Ryan began to transition his career away from chasing the podium of some of the world’s most elite bike races and wanted to show a little bit of the behind the scenes and why he loves to ride bikes. There’s so much joy to come from exploring your surroundings on a bike and Ryan wanted to share his experiences with others through a video series about biking across Colorado. The goal was to bike through seven towns in seven days from Crested Butte to Boulder.
In each town he’d meet up with locals to show him the best spots in town for coffee, their favorite trail and a classic spot for a beer at the end of the day. This project was big. Really, really big. It’s definitely one of the most intense video productions my career so I’m stoked to show you a bit of the process.
So I’ll show you how we made it…
The Crew
From left to right: Ryan (Producer/Athlete), me (Director / Cinematographer / Editor), Danny (Production Assistant / Stills), Brent (Biking Camera Operator)
The team consisted of four people which is remarkably small for a project of the size and scope. We created nearly 70 minutes worth of video content within a week of filming and three weeks of editing, which was massive. Ryan, who is the producer and athlete, set up all the interviews, planned the routes, booked the hotels and figured out exactly what the schedule was going to look like. I was the director, cinematographer and editor.
Basically, I was in charge of how the videos came together when it’s all said and done.
Next up is our fantastic biking camera operator Brent Jacoby. As both a skilled mountain biker and capable cameraman Brent had a unique skill set that allowed him to follow Ryan and other mountain bikers with a camera during the week. Since I’m not a very talented biker myself, Brent was crucial to the success of the mission. Finally our fourth member was our production assistant and stills photographer Danny Rodriguez.
Because I didn’t have much time to eat because of the intense filming schedule, I often had to film interviews and eat at the same time. Not my prettiest moment but captures the chaos. The clip I filmed here made it into episode 2 :)
Danny was an all-star on this project and really demonstrated a willing attitude to do whatever he could to help move the project forward which included packing up the car, picking up lunch, driving Brent and I around during the filming process and so much more. Because of Danny’s enthusiasm, humble attitude and willingness to get things done he’s become my go-to assistant for a lot of future projects.
Although it’s my name and Ryan Petry‘s name all over this project, I cannot stress enough how important it was to have such an upbeat, optimistic, hard-working, and unified team.
The production
So each of the seven days had their own challenges when it came to the video production process. I spent about 16 hours per day working. I had a brief window of eating and a seemingly even smaller window of sleeping. Instead of walking through each of the days since you’ll gather what we experienced from the videos, I’ll just give you an overall gist of what it was like to film this.
Moving a tripod to get the shots of Ryan coming over Loveland Pass.
Every day followed a similar structure, Ryan would wake up and I would immediately shove a camera Into his face. We talked through what the route looked like for the day then we would go and meet up with whichever local we had scheduled for that town.
Notable guests include Red Bull athlete Chris Davenport, mountain bike Hall of Famer Dave Wiens, 20 time Leadville 100 Trail finisher Ty Hall and bicycle advocate Brooke Goudy.
We would typically shoot an interview with the local rider over coffee to learn more about their town, the trails they like to ride and what makes mountain biking special to them. I typically set up two cameras, one pointed at Ryan and one pointed at the local rider. For audio I placed a lavaliere microphone on them to capture their responses in the best way.
To capture the mountain biking portions I would often trail run a couple miles with my gimbal to get stable footage of them on the trail.
After the morning coffee Ryan and the local rider would head out on a bike ride.
Ryan had asked each guest to show him the best ride in town for somebody who was only going to be there for one day so he got a cool glimpse into what the mountain bike trails look like in that town. During the section Brent would take over and I would take a break for a couple hours. That break often meant packing up the hotel room with Danny, backing up footage or heading out on a trail run myself to enjoy some of these amazing areas that we found ourselves in. During the Vail visit, Danny and I hung out in the hot tub at the hotel while Brent and Ryan we’re out riding one of the harder routes of the week but we don’t like to talk about that too much since most of the time we were busy doing other preparations to keep the production moving forward.
Transitioning from mountain bike to road bike
After Brent filmed Ryan during the morning mountain bike ride, Ryan would transition into a different headspace for a solo ride into the next town. These bike rides ranged in style and distance so one day he could be biking over 100 miles on the road while the next day he could have a technical mountain bike ride over a mountain pass to the next town. In terms of filming these transfers I would often be hanging out of the car with my camera on a stabilizer to get shots of Ryan on the road. When Ryan was not on the road, Brent would join him and capture the trail experiences. Finally, once we arrive to the next town Ryan would meet up with the next local rider for a beer.
While they chatted and got to know each other, I would film the b-roll that would eventually be overlaid with the voice over from Ryan talking about the experience from the day. Then, when the day was over my work wasn’t done because I had to back up all of that footage onto my computer, charge all of the batteries and prepare for the next day. I would typically stay up an hour or two later than everybody doing that data management and going through the footage from the day to make sure we had everything and looked at how we could improve for the next day.
While it sounds relatively formulaic every day was so different and led to some really amazing memories. We all laughed hard, had some incredible conversations exercised in beautiful places and interacted with amazing people.
By the end of the week we were all incredibly exhausted but with hearts and hard drives full of some great experiences.
Day 5 of 7 we really had our systems dialed!
The Business of Filmmaking & Bikes
Although this was mostly a joint passion project and proof of concept for future collaborations between Ryan and I, we did receive a lot of help from some great brands. Canyon, Sweet Protection, Pearl Izumi, MTB, and Industry Nine all played a role in bringing this project to life and I’m so stoked they were able to support this huge effort. Because this video series originated as a passion project, Ryan approached these brands to see if they’d be willing to help out.
We were not commissioned by anybody to make this project so this was all Ryan’s brainchild and executed brilliantly by the team. It takes A LOT of time and energy to bring something of this scale and magnitude to life so I hope you enjoy watching all of the episodes.
To learn more about our Best Week Ever video series visit Canyons YouTube channels to watch all the episodes as they come out!
Chat with the filmmaker!
Roo is a commercial/documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Boulder, Colorado but travels all around the world for his filmmaking career. He has produced films for Outside Magazine in Ireland, camera operated for Netflix in the Rocky Mountain West, photographed among indigenous communities in Peru and Ecuador, directed videos with professional climbers in Mexico and has received notable recognition in his hometown of Orcas Island in Washington State for his work telling uplifting stories in the outdoor space.